Adelaide Research & Scholarship

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2440/120006

Citations

Scopus

Web of Science®

Altmetric

?

?

Full metadata record

DC Field

Value

Language

dc.contributor.author

Christiansen, D.

en

dc.contributor.author

Earnest-Silveira, L.

en

dc.contributor.author

Grubor-Bauk, B.

en

dc.contributor.author

Wijesundara, D.

en

dc.contributor.author

Boo, I.

en

dc.contributor.author

Ramsland, P.

en

dc.contributor.author

Vincan, E.

en

dc.contributor.author

Drummer, H.

en

dc.contributor.author

Gowans, E.

en

dc.contributor.author

Torresi, J.

en

dc.date.issued

2019

en

dc.identifier.citation

Scientific Reports, 2019; 9(1):1-13

en

dc.identifier.issn

2045-2322

en

dc.identifier.issn

2045-2322

en

dc.identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2440/120006

-

dc.description.abstract

The introduction of directly acting antiviral agents (DAAs) has produced significant improvements in the ability to cure chronic hepatitis C infection. However, with over 2% of the world's population infected with HCV, complications arising from the development of cirrhosis of the liver, chronic hepatitis C infection remains the leading indication for liver transplantation. Several modelling studies have indicated that DAAs alone will not be sufficient to eliminate HCV, but if combined with an effective vaccine this regimen would provide a significant advance towards achieving this critical World Health Organisation goal. We have previously generated a genotype 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a HCV virus like particle (VLP) quadrivalent vaccine. The HCV VLPs contain the core and envelope proteins (E1 and E2) of HCV and the vaccine has been shown to produce broad humoral and T cell immune responses following vaccination of mice. In this report we further advanced this work by investigating vaccine responses in a large animal model. We demonstrate that intradermal microneedle vaccination of pigs with our quadrivalent HCV VLP based vaccine produces long-lived multi-genotype specific and neutralizing antibody (NAb) responses together with strong T cell and granzyme B responses and normal Th1 and Th2 cytokine responses. These responses were achieved without the addition of adjuvant. Our study demonstrates that our vaccine is able to produce broad immune responses in a large animal that, next to primates, is the closest animal model to humans. Our results are important as they show that the vaccine can produce robust immune responses in a large animal model before progressing the vaccine to human trials.